Thoughts on COVID/ week 2

Context: This post was originally written in the second week of social distancing, following the first COVID outbreak in my area. It was a private letter to my own church originally, but I’ve decided to copy/paste it to the blog here.

Though social distancing is painful, it is needed now more than ever. We're climbing in the rate of confirmed cases of infection and right now experts I've read after are estimating a transmissibility of 1 to 3—one person will infect three more before this slows down. Quarantining and social distancing allows hospitals to resupply, catch a breath, and prepare for wave 2 of this awful virus.

Quarantine is teaching us several lessons as a society. I've watched as people share their silver-lining stories on social media. Some of us are realizing we travel too much, we're away from our homes and families too much, we spend too much money eating out, etc. This time has afforded us the ability to reevaluate what we value.

In that sense, this has been like a "hard-reset" for many of us. I used to fix iPhones as my day-job. You probably know this as well as anyone—we're all attached to our phones—and sometimes a smartphone just needs a break! We run them 24/7, we use them for everything, we rely on them for tasks big and small, and we seldom shut them down to let them have a moment. 

A hard-reset clears caches of temporary memory files that build up as you use your phone. Similarly, our day-to-day tasks and anxieties can build up in us, often without us even realizing. When a smartphone crashes, we used to call that a 'panic.' I'd sit down with one of my customers, run diagnostics, and more often than not I would say, "Well, your phone's going to be fine. It just had a panic."

The solution to panic is a simple reset. Turn it off and back on again. Hard-reset. And to prevent panic, the cure is as simple: Turn it off and back on once every couple of days or so. 

This quarantine has forced us to turn some things off in our lives and we're beginning to see the benefit. You might be going nuts at home right now—my mom says dad has 'ants in his pants,' he wants to get out and run around. Not me. I've been loving the ability to take a breath.

This experience hasn't been as refreshing for many. Many have lost income, have been separated from family, and some have lost precious loved ones. Some might question God in a time like this. God, why would you let this happen?

We don't know exactly why God allows bad things to happen to good people but we can take a few guesses. Trials refine us, as I said above, they help us to reevaluate our values. Trials teach us. Trials point to the temporary nature of this world, they beckon us to look to God, and they make us long for his Heaven. Trials, ultimately, expose our greatest need: We need Jesus. We need the Solution, our Savior. We could never understand our need for his redemption if we hadn't first suffered the absence of his saving grace.

Perhaps most importantly, trials afford the Christian an opportunity to be a light in a dark world. To point to Jesus. To practice true religion, that is, caring for the widow, the orphan, the needy, the anxious, ill, and oppressed.

We're all practicing our religion right now. You might say that we are fasting, which is a sort of concentrated form of religious practice. In quarantine, we're fasting from social events, fasting from personal touch, fasting from overburdening our medical providers, fasting from many kinds of food as we cook for ourselves (and thus, many of us are making wiser food choices). These are all forms of religious practice.

Fasting is giving something up, for a period of time, to hard-reset. We fast to reevaluate our values, expressing repentance (1 Samuel 7:6, Jonah 3:5-6), or grief (1 Samuel 31:13, 2 Samuel 1:11-12), or concern for God's work in the world (Nehemiah 1:3-4, Daniel 9:3). We fast to lend strength to our fervent prayers (Ezra 8:23, Joel 2:12, Acts 13:3). We fast to request God’s guidance (Judges 20:23-26, Acts 14:23) and to prompt his protection (Ezra 8:21-23, 2 Chronicles 29:3-4). We fast to show humility before God (1 Kings 21:27-29, Psalm 35:13). Lastly, fasting is a dedication of self to God, saying "God, use me!" (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 2:37).

Isaiah 58 describes the kind of fast that pleases God. It isn't a fast where we beat our chests, disfigure our faces, go out and grunt and yell and draw attention to ourselves. "Look at me world! Look at how I'm suffering!" No, the kind of fast that truly pleases God is this:

God says through the prophet Isaiah, "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" (Isaiah 58:6-7).

That's what we ought to be doing in this time. First, break yokes. What's that mean? In a time before tractors, a yoke was strapped to an ox, so that it cannot escape the labor of tilling soil. It can't run away. Breaking a yoke means that you're setting the burdened oxen free. Our religious practice ought to be one that frees those in bondage.

Jesus said "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." A yoke was sometimes used to strap two oxen together, to generate more power. But two unequally yoked oxen—a big one with a little one—that won't do. One would be dragged along by the other. One would hold the other back. Jesus' call was to allow ourselves to be joined to him. His work is simple: Love God, love people. His burden is light: "Do not let your heart be troubled," he said. His is the yoke that brings freedom.

Second, Isaiah says, fasting isn't just about not eating. It's about giving your bread to someone who's hungry. In a time when so many are in need, we more than anyone ought to be stepping up to share generously! Then Isaiah commands us to clothe the naked. John the Baptist echoed this when he said, "If you have two tunics, give one away." Many of us have been driven by this quarantine to Spring clean. If you have two North Face jackets, give one away.

Lastly, God says through the prophet Isaiah, "Don't hide yourself from your own flesh." Don't reject your own flesh and blood! Don't turn your back on family. A lot of us are growing tired of our families right now. Some are trapped at home with children—God, what an awful thought! (kidding). Jesus was a prophet rejected in his own hometown. He, more than anyone else, knew how tough it is to reach your own friends and family. It's easy to talk to strangers—they've only known you 10 minutes. But sharing Jesus with people who remember you in diapers? who know all of your deepest flaws? That's tough.

But the people who know you at your worst are ones who see most clearly your dramatic life change in Christ. In Christ, you are a new creation. A whole new person. The apostle Paul describes it most vividly when he says he put the Old Man to death! He is a new man. Those who know your old person best are the ones who will be most shocked by a new you, and thus most open to hearing "the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15).

These are just a few thoughts off the top of my head, and apologies as I type this out on my phone I'm sure I've made some typos, I definitely typed a novel here so thank you for reading.